Foggy Racing Qatar test day two notes

FPR's Aussie Pairing Complete Valuable Qatar Test
The Australian pair of Steve Martin and Garry McCoy completed a valuable second day of testing at Losail circuit in Doha, Qatar, with significant improvements on their fastest laps of yesterday...

FPR's Aussie Pairing Complete Valuable Qatar Test

The Australian pair of Steve Martin and Garry McCoy completed a valuable second day of testing at Losail circuit in Doha, Qatar, with significant improvements on their fastest laps of yesterday with times of 2:04.483 and 2:05.455 respectively.

Yukio Kagayama was the fastest of the expanded World Superbike grid with a lap of 2:01.480 around the 5.380km circuit in the desert.

The eight hours of testing over the two days provided invaluable set-up data for the team's Australian pair, who have been short of experience on the PETRONAS FP1, in advance of the first round of the season at the same circuit later this week.

Jack said: "We've had another positive day of testing and what we've achieved in just eight hours is really useful. Our main concentration was to get the optimum set up for this track and the riders' preferences. A lot of data has been collected and we're at a point where the over all package is working well and the set up we've achieved today we'll use for the race weekend, which for us has been far more important than chasing lap times. Now we'll only have fine tuning adjustments to make at the race which will provide us with more track time for running longer sets of laps."

Steve said: "We continued our set up work from yesterday and particularly this morning, made some really good changes, to a point where I'm happy we've tested everything we possibly could have and found a good base setting for the race here. This afternoon's progress was a bit slower as although we made some good moves, I wasn't on the roll I had been on and also had a full tank of fuel on board. There's still a bit more work I want to do on braking but other than that I'm feeling confident on the bike. Due to an incident on track I wasn't able to make full use of my qualifying tyre which is really annoying, as I know I could have been in the 2:03s if I'd have had a clear lap on that."

Garry said: "We continued this morning where we left off yesterday, trying to get a good base setting for this track and also my riding style. I'm happy that we're pretty close now which is where I wanted to be at the end of this test, as for me, this is my first full test on the FP1. We've got a bit of work left to do to make both my bikes feel exactly the same but I know we can get this right in time for the race. I think this track will be a bit tough for us as we're just that little bit down on power, although the bike's handling is good so that gives us an advantage."

The first round of the Superbike World Championship starts on Thursday 24 February, with race day on Saturday, 26 February.